
Safety orange (also known as blaze orange, vivid orange,
OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA; ) is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. The United States Congress established ...
orange, hunter orange, or
Caltrans
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an Executive (government), executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the Government of California#State agencies, cabinet-level California State Tran ...
orange) is a
hue
In color theory, hue is one of the properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as ...
used to set objects apart from their surroundings, particularly in
complementary
Complement may refer to:
The arts
* Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave
** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class collections into complementary sets
* Complementary color, in the visu ...
contrast
Contrast may refer to:
Science
* Contrast (vision), the contradiction in form, colour and light between parts of an image
* Contrast (statistics), a combination of averages whose coefficients add up to zero, or the difference between two means
* ...
to the
azure
Azure may refer to:
Color
* Azure (color), a hue of blue
** Azure (heraldry)
** Shades of azure, shades and variations
Arts and media
* ''Azure'' (Art Farmer and Fritz Pauer album), 1987
* Azure (Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell album), 2013
* ...
color of the
sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...
. (Azure is the
complementary color
Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or color mixing, mixed, cancel each other out (lose Colorfulness, chroma) by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the stronge ...
of
orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
** Orange juice
*Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...
, and thus there is a stark contrast between the two colors.) The
high-visibility color is commonly used in hunting contexts and for construction site
safety
Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...
.
ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...
standard Z535.1–1998 states how safety orange is defined in the following notation systems:
;
Munsell notation:
: 5.0YR (hue) 6.0/15 (value/chroma)
; Approximate PMS (
Pantone
Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is an American limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color order system used in a variety of industries, notably gr ...
) Color (mixing directions):
: 13 parts
yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...
, 3 parts
warm red, part
black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
; Pantone number
: 151c
;
CIE Data:
: ''x'' = 0.5510 ''y'' = 0.4214 Y% = 30.05
Note that this CIE color point is outside the gamut of common color spaces like
sRGB
sRGB (standard RGB) is a colorspace, for use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web. It was initially proposed by HP and Microsoft in 1996 and became an official standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as IEC 6 ...
or
Adobe RGB
Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used ...
.

The closest CIE color point that is still in the sRGB gamut is ''x'' = 0.54091, ''y'' = 0.40869, Y% = 30.05, corresponding to the sRGB-255 coordinates (232, 118, 0).
The Adobe RGB color space is larger than the sRGB color space; the closest "safety orange" CIE color point that is still in the Adobe RGB gamut is ''x'' = 0.54467, ''y'' = 0.41424, ''Y''% = 30.05%, corresponding to the AdobeRGB-255 coordinates (206, 118, 0).
Safety orange is the color usually used in the United States for
traffic cone
Traffic cones, also called pylons, witches' hats, road cones, highway cones, safety cones, caution cones, channelizing devices, construction cones, roadworks cones, or just cones, are usually cone-shaped markers that are placed on roads or footpa ...
s (starting in 1961),
stanchion
A stanchion () is a sturdy upright fixture that provides support for some other object. It can be a permanent fixture.
Types
In architecture, stanchions are the upright iron bars in windows that pass through the eyes of the saddle bars or horiz ...
s,
barrels
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...
, and other construction zone marking devices.
OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA; ) is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. The United States Congress established ...
requires that certain construction equipment must be painted safety orange. Two large trucking companies,
Allied Van Lines
Allied Van Lines is an American moving company founded in 1928 as a cooperative non-profit organization owned by its member agents on the east coast of the United States, to help with organizing return loads and minimizing dead-heading (i.e. ...
and
Schneider National
Schneider National, Inc. is a provider of truckload, intermodal and logistics services. Schneider's services include regional, long-haul, expedited, dedicated, bulk, intermodal, brokerage, cross-dock logistics, pool point distribution, suppl ...
, paint their trucks and trailers safety orange. In Europe, Dayglo orange (or "luminous orange";
RAL 2005
The following is a list of RAL Classic colours from the RAL colour standard. The visual samples are approximate and informative only.
RAL Classic Yellow and beige
Orange
Red
Violet
Blue
Green
Grey
Brown
White and b ...
) serves the same purpose.
Safety orange is the same color as blaze orange, the shade of orange (Color No. 12199) required by
United States law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...
(U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade, Section 1150.3) to be on the tips of barrels of replica guns such as
airsoft
Airsoft, also known as survival game () in Japan where it was popular, is a team sport, team-based shooting sport, shooting game in which participants eliminate opposing players out of play by shooting them with airsoft pellets, spherical plast ...
guns, and cap or toy guns. Hunter orange is also the color of hats, caps, and other safety wear required to be worn while
hunting
Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...
in most US states.
Elsewhere
Orange vests using colors such as ''safety orange'' as
high visibility clothing
High-visibility clothing, sometimes shortened to hi vis or hi viz, is any clothing worn that is highly luminescent in its natural matt property or a color that is easily discernible from any background. It is most commonly worn on the torso an ...
may be commonly worn by workers in the US: this is not merely a legal standard but can be influenced by culture.
Since such colored patterned gear is easily produced, it can be assigned any kind of meaning. In Indonesia, it is commonly worn by parking attendants. Similarly in Thailand, it is used by motorcycle taxi workers. In
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
, some
Government Flying Service
The Hong Kong Government Flying Service (HKGFS) is a disciplined unit and paramilitary flying organisation of the Government of Hong Kong.
The service has its head office in, and operates from, the southwestern end of Hong Kong International ...
's aircraft and helicopters are painted in safety orange. Orange construction signs can also be found in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
.
See also
*
Safety yellow
*
Construction site safety
Construction site safety is an aspect of construction-related activities concerned with protecting construction site workers and others from death, injury, disease or other health-related risks. Construction is an often hazardous, predominantly lan ...
*
Fire engine red
Fire engine red, also known as fire truck red in North America, is an informal name for an bright red commonly used on emergency vehicles in many countries on fire service vehicles, such as fire engines. The name does not refer to any particu ...
*
International orange
International orange is a color used in the aerospace industry and maritime industry to set objects apart from their surroundings, similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone.
Variations
There are several variants of inte ...
*
List of colors
These are the lists of colors;
* List of colors: A–F
* List of colors: G–M
* List of colors: N–Z
* List of colors (alphabetical)
* List of colors by shade
* List of color palettes
* List of Crayola crayon colors
* List of RAL colours
* List o ...
*
School bus yellow
School bus yellow is a color that was specifically formulated for use on school buses in North America in 1939. Originally officially named National School Bus Chrome, the color is now officially known in Canada and the U.S. as National School ...
*
Spectral color
A spectral color is a color that is evoked by monochromatic light, i.e. either a spectral line with a single wavelength or frequency of light in the visible spectrum, or a relatively narrow spectral band (e.g. lasers). Every wave of visible ...
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Safety Orange
Hunting
Safety
Shades of orange